Delicate
by Caitlynnn
Summary: What is friendship? Is it something to be taken lightly? Sometimes in friendships when you break someone's heart you often break your own. A story on how something so simple can alter your whole life. Eliona. ONESHOT.


**This is way overdue. Happy birthday Gehad! You're a wonderful person and I'm glad that I know you. Really, I am. And I hope your birthday was brilliant. **

**This is Eliona. In case you didn't know its Fiona and Eli. The best friendships since Ellie and Marco. Ha. In my opinion. Basically this fic is not a crackship. It's more of an exploration of the heartbreak and beauty of… friendship. Friendships are really important in Highschool. They're they only thing I got in Highschool that's worth getting out of bed and going and all. Later after Collision I'm going to be starting a new fic called Underneath It all and some scenes from this fic are going to be in Underneath It All. So it's sort of a preview. **

**Dedicated to pavingnewpaths. **

**I don't own Degrassi. **

**1. **

They're driving, the heater turned all the way up, heading to a place where they don't even know. Fiona rolls her eyes at his reckless driving and Eli weaves in and out of traffic, and the rain starts to pour and he smiles. This is a beautiful day. He likes the rain and he likes that his best friend is right next to him. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you have someone's back and they have yours. It just makes you feel good inside.

The map is hard to read, Fiona tells Eli. He grabs it and chucks in the back. "We don't need a map." He tells her and she shakes her head trying to get it but then gives up.

His speed increases and he cant help it but want to go a little faster in and out, like he's trying to runaway but not. So he keeps pressing on and keeps on a steady pace until. It happens.

They crash. Eli reaches out towards Fiona.

He's seen this happen before.

Julia.

All over again.

But Eli reaches out for her and she takes his hand as they flip.

**2. **

Two months later, they get a new car and they name it Tim. Eli doesn't know why but the car just looks like a Tim and that's how it's going to be. Fiona is scared of cars and she hates getting in Tim. Its not that she doesn't trust Eli, because she does, but she's scared to look at Eli in the eye because he forever has the scar across his face. Sometimes in the middle of the night he calls himself a two faced monster and he yells to the sky and asks why did he let it happen. He knows it's his fault and he knows that no matter how hard he tries he wont be able to change the situation or the results. All you can do is keep going and keep pressing on. Because in the end that's all you got.

"Lets put ointment on it." Fiona says, getting the cream from the bathroom. Eli shakes his head and moans. "It burns my face." He yelps as she sits on the edge of the bed and puts some on his face. He turns his head away and she laughs at him. "You're a wimp." She tells him and grabs his head and keeps him still. "Just a little more." She says, and puts more on the top of his forehead.

"Get ready for work." She pats his knee and walks out of his room and Fiona goes into the kitchen drinking her coffee. Her arm hurts a little, but that's just because in the quiet it hurts, reminding her that they were in a car accident. A car accident… she was in the car. She was there… she felt it.

As Eli gets dressed he walks in the kitchen and pours himself some coffee. "I hate my job." He moans, touching his face, the sticky stuff coming off on his hand. "I need to get away." He says again and Fiona frowns at him. Even though financially they're fine. They live in an apartment together, Eli feels like he needs a job. Maybe it's his pride, but he hates living off of Fiona. It makes him feel like he's lazy.

As he walks away grabbing the car keys he doesn't look back at Fiona because he knows that there is a look of worry in her eyes.

**3. **

She loves him and sometimes she feels like he doesn't love her as much as she loves him. Once you find that one friend who you share a common interest with. Once you find that one friend who completes you in ways any other friend doesn't all you want to do is just be there for them and love them no matter what. And it breaks your heart when you realize that they are on a destructive path of life and that they are doing things that you know they shouldn't do. But you can't tell them that, no matter what because you love them.

Eli has his dark days. The one's where he doesn't want to get out of bed because it hurts too much. And sometimes he feels like at any moment he'll break apart and he really wants to fix that but the friends he's made in his head tells him no. He can't get better. Getting better requires more, and requiring more means a lot of pain and a lot of heartbreak. A heart can't take up that much empty space. It breaks.

A lot of things happened when he was in Highschool and he knows that he was in the wrong about a lot of things. But sometimes he wished he could go back and reply them all. But he started to alienate himself after a while. Because sometimes it hurt him too much when he noticed that he actually hurt people and he didn't mean to. There was a part of him that knew all along that people cared for him, but he didn't want them to care for him. It was just too much pressure.

"I'm going." Eli says to Fiona as he takes his jacket and his keys. She's watching television and she looks at him, "Where?" She looks over at the clock and its almost midnight, she gets up and walks over to him. "Do you want me to go with you?" She asks and he shakes his head. "No I need to go alone." He tells her and walks out.

As Eli gets in his car the heavy feeling in his heart begins to get heavier and heavier and his heart feels like its getting smaller and smaller. He hates this hurting that he always feels. Even when he's happy he still feels it. It's like a tattoo. It's always there. Even if its fades away after a while its still there, the traces, the outlines. Never changing never moving.

Once Eli makes a few turns and a passes a couple exits outside of the city he finds the place that he's looking for. The cemetery is dark and he feels a chill go down his back as he gets out of his car and walks through the little gate. This all-just part of the process.

In the back is where she was laid. He trembles because he's stepping all over dead bodies and he knows that they all have stories. How they died. The sad part is he always comes up for stories for them. This one fell in love and he died, this one saved his friend in a car accident. This one died in vain. He committed suicide and she didn't mean to die but she did. He feels bad for that one. He guesses she was young. He's standing on tons of ghost and he wonders if any of them are following him right now. And if they are he smiles at them.

There was once where he was on a manic and he saw people that didn't exist and he wondered why they didn't exist. They were much nicer than people in real life. He would have been a friend for the people who didn't exist. But that is the life of a bipolar person. Sometimes you can get so lost in your head, and you can create people you wish you knew in your mind and sometimes it goes as far out as you can imagine and they are right before your eyes. That's the only way Eli could explain a bipolar person if they asked.

"I'm here." He tells Julia. He sits down by her grave. Its total darkness around him. "I don't know what to do anymore." He tells her, and he doesn't wait for an answer as he keeps going. "I feel lost." He shakes his head. "I close myself up from the people who love me most." No one will ever know how bad the accident affected him. He feels like the accident was a wake up calling. He needed to wake up.

**4. **

The mall is crowded but they sit at their bench. The one they always go to every Friday night because there is nothing better to do on Friday's. They have each other and that's all they need.

Both have coffees in their hands and they are slowly warming up to it. Its cold in Toronto. Of course it's December Eli's favourite time of the year. "How about her?" Fiona nods her head over to a brunette and he shakes her head. "Too pink." He says and shivers in disgust and Fiona rolls her eyes and laughs. "Her?" She points to a blond. "Not too much pink. She has a natural element to her." She smiles at Eli and he shrugs.

Eli spots a girl with all black and piercing and tattoos all over her body. "What about her?" Eli points her out and Fiona slowly turns to look at him. "Its like you don't know me at all." She shakes her head taking a sip of her coffee. Eli can't help but crack up to a point where there are tears in his eyes. "Hey for all we know she could be volunteering at the puppy pound on her weekends." He laughs again, "You can't judge someone for what they look like on the outside." He says taking a sip of his drink.

**5. **

He couldn't believe they were here. He couldn't believe that Fiona even wanted an animal that wasn't a pig. "They are so cute." She whispers looking at the puppies.

"Hey I'm Danielle." A woman sighs and Eli almost chokes on his gum because this was the girl that they were talking about at the mall a month ago. "Fiona." He elbows her but she's so into the little puppies in the cage. "Eli." He offers his hand and then he taps Fiona on the shoulder. "And this is Fiona." Who obviously isn't paying attention, her face still looking at the puppies as she slowly turns towards Danielle. The look of shock is hard to cover up. "Hi." Fiona says her voice a bit shaky.

A couple hours later they get a puppy and Fiona gets a date.

It really worked out like that. Apparently the girl in the all black with the many piercing and tattoos does work at the puppy pound on her weekends. She apparently also is intelligent and cares way too much about people.

**6. **

Fiona walks in her apartment its pitch black in the room and she looks at the clock and its past midnight. She's giddy and her insides feels like there are butterflies. She hasn't had that feeling in a while. To feel like to be wanted by someone and just the general feeling of being liked. It was overwhelming for her, because she felt too much. But she was getting better at it. She was getting better at telling people about how she felt. She lived with someone who often needed a lot of help, but he was slowly starting to shut down on her.

She slowly creeps in his room and gets under the covers and lies next to him. "Eli." She whispers.

He doesn't move.

"Eli." She now taps his shoulder. Still, he doesn't budge.

"Damnit." She whispers as she gets the pillow and hits him. "Get up." She says hitting him with the pillow again. "Eli." She says, hitting him and hitting him with the pillow.

She huffs as she grabs his ipod and puts the ear buds in his ears and plays the song turning up the volume extremely high.

"HOLY SHIT!" He gets up immediately and looks around the room. "Oh its just you…" He lies back down and then turns on his side. "Oh." He turns around facing her, their faces right by each other in the darkness. "What?" He asks her, cause he knows she's smiling. "I know that smile isn't from waking me up from my beauty sleep."

She shakes her head in the darkness and whispers, "She kissed me." She sighs in contentment. "We also held hands." Hand holding. A powerful thing to Fiona. When you hold hands with someone its an unbreakable thing. Their hand in yours you almost feel like you can face anything because of it… because you know that there's another person right next to you.

"Was there…" he whispers, "tongue involved?"

She smacks him with the pillow and closes her eyes.

**7. **

The thing with Eli and relationships… they don't last long. He doesn't know how to be happy in them. He doesn't know how not to be so serious. When he's in a relationship he feels like they should be together for life. That's his problem… or so he thinks. He just wants to make the person happy. He might be a bit too loyal and that's not a bad thing, but sometimes loyalty can be suffocating. Because they're always there.

"You just haven't found the right person yet." Fiona tells him all the time. "I love you and I believe in you." She always says. Sometimes it annoyed him. He couldn't look at her other days. He just wanted to runaway from everyone. "Yeah, yeah." He would whisper when she left on her dates with Danielle who seemed to be going strong for the past three months. He barely saw Fiona and he wanted to be with her all the time. It was around the time Julia died and he had no Clare to comfort him. They hadn't talked since freshmen year of college and they went their separate ways. There weren't any bitter endings between them. The last he heard of was she was going to Jake's wedding. Funny how things change. Eli always figured Jake didn't really give a shit about girls other than using them. Its also funny how the tables have turned.

"Hey." Fiona walks in the room and sits down next to him on the couch leaning her head on his shoulder and they watch TV together. She doesn't ask questions because she already knows. "How did your date go?" He asks her and Charles makes his way onto Eli's lap. Charles isn't a big dog but he isn't tiny either. He's a good dog though. He doesn't shit in the house or piss all over the furniture but he favours Eli a little bit more than Fiona. He pets the dog and he tries to lick Eli and he shakes his head.

"It was good. She took me to music store. You know the new one down main?"

That did it for Eli. He was done.

"Good for fucking you then."

He walks out of the room.

**8. **

It's true that jealousy is a bitch.

Some say jealousy just means that you care too much about the person. If so that's the case for Eli. He loves Fiona and he doesn't want her to be anyone else's but his. No, he doesn't love her in that way. But they've been living together for a while and it gets to a point where you become dependent on that person to always be there for you when you need it, and you think that they SHOULD be there for you when you need. Like you're high above the rest. That's how Eli feels with Fiona. He doesn't like Danielle. She's nice yeah. He hates that she's nice. It doesn't help Eli at all that she's nice and really attractive looking when she doesn't wear too much make up. She's a little weird and that doesn't help either.

He's pacing back and forth in his room the destruction all around him. He acts on impulse. He can't help it. He threw the closest thing, which so happened to be a glass full of water. But its now broken on the ground.

Fiona is the only thing he has. Everyone else left him. Their friendship worked because they both knew what it felt like to go a little insane, and they both knew what it felt like to be misunderstood or like you don't belong somewhere cause you're just too weird. Or in both cases you felt too much and said too little. He was the part Fiona needed, the masculine and Fiona was the feminine. She reminded him that he was needed in this world and he reminded her that she was worth it.

He wonders what it would have been like if she wasn't there that one night he needed her most.

It was last year and he was in the bathroom, and the razor was right by his side. He didn't know why he felt so suicidal. But he was drunk and the blood was spilling out and he couldn't help it but want to end it all by one more cut. He was slowly getting there, and the light getting brighter before him, the brightness was drowning him. But he had heard a voice and she was beckoning for him to come back and to fucking live. She told him she needed him and she loved him and even after it all, believed in him. After that accident, she started to tell him that she loved him and believed in him.

Eli sits on the floor with a piece of glass in his hand. He puts the glass on his skin. The only thing to make it bleed as if he slides it across.

The door opens and Fiona exams the mess and starts to cry. "What are you doing?" She asks as she heads over to him. Danielle is in the door way with a shocked look on her face, she turns away going into the living room.

"I just wanted the anger to stop." He tells her, and he feels the blood starting to form. He guessed he pressed down on the glass so hard it broke the skin. "Why are you angry?" She asks through her tears as she wraps her sweater around his arm. "You don't need me anymore."

It might have been ridiculous reason. But in the moment its not. Friendships are important. It's a scary place without a friend. Someone you can lean on for anything. She shakes her head as she helps him up and into the bathroom. "What do you mean?" She grabs the towel gets it wet and puts it on his wound.

"You have Danielle." He shrugs and he smiles at her. "It's probably better this way." He laughs, but it's not funny. "I have become so dependant on you its unhealthy and it's making me suicidal." He laughs looking at his wound. Have you ever felt like that? He wonders if anyone has loved someone so much that they wanted to hurt themselves because of it.

She backs away and runs into the door and sinks to the floor. She puts her head in her palms and she screams. She had a flashback of when Declan yelled at her telling her, "You're messed up Fi, and this time I don't think I can help you."

She knew what it felt like.

"Just because I have Danielle doesn't mean I don't need you or don't love you anymore."

It was true, but you can't help it but feel replaced. Because somewhere down the road people will always change. It's just the way it goes in life. Things change. People change. Friendships change. Friends do end up leaving and sometimes they're replaced by friends that stay. And that's not a bad thing. You can't change it; you can't make it the way you want it to be. You can only deal with it.

"Danielle is a lot like you, you know." Fiona wipes her face on her sleeve. "You have a lot of similar qualities." Fiona looks down at her hands. "Don't get mad, okay?" She asks, but doesn't wait for an answer. "I asked her to take me to the new music store because I wanted to buy you this." Fiona gets up and gets the bag by the bed. "Here." She hands him the CD. "The first album of Dead Hand." This was rare and cost a lot of money. "She was a fan of Dead Hand." Fiona laughs. "Danielle loves them." She shrugs. "I know you love them more. I convinced her that you needed it more."

Eli doesn't know what to think what to say.

"She's going to break my heart someday." Fiona knows this. "Eventually every girl will." She shrugs, "But you won't." Even though in any relationship, if you love them enough, they end up breaking your heart. You hurt the ones you love. It's just the way it goes. But it's the best type of heartbreak.

**9. **

Love. What is love? There are so many definitions. So many ways of showing you love someone. The greatest would be friendship. Someone you can rely on when times are hard, someone who you can call and cry to on the phone. They don't have to say anything because in the moment you said it all: nothing. And nothing is all you need to hear because they are proving they love you by just listening to you. That's all you need.

Sure, things will be bad. Sometimes you might wake up and not want to talk to them, don't want to be around, they may annoy the hell out of you but you never would want them to leave you. But sometimes they do leave. There maybe no reason behind it, just stuff happens. Its part of growing up. Often times when you break someone's heart, you also break your own. And its painful, it hurts but its okay. Sometimes you so badly want to be the friend you want to be for them… but sometimes you're not the friend they need. And it hurts, but you can't blame yourself. You can only accept the fact that you can't always be there for them.

It's raining as they head out in Tim. They didn't bring a map this time. It's the anniversary date of the car crash. They don't know why they're going out but all they know is that they are going together. They're ready for what this storm brings.

Who knows if they'll still be best friends next year?

And even if they never talk again, he is forever changed by Fiona and what she meant to him. Because she believed in him. When no one else did.

**Yep. I can't write something nice and cute. But there were some cute moments, right? Haha… Sorry, Gehad…**

**Anyways. This whole year I've had a lot of questioning of what friendship really is. So I started to write this Monday and I finished it today. Happy Veterans Day. **

**Reviews are appreciated. **


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